Jaffa

The Syrian campaign began in February 1799: the aim was to forestall an Ottoman offensive and, in Bonaparte's mind, perhaps to open a road to India. El-Arish and Gaza fell; Jaffa, a fortified town held by a Turkish garrison, refused to surrender and beheaded the envoys sent to parley. It was stormed on 7 March and given over to pillage for two days.

Then came the problem of the prisoners: between two and a half and four thousand men, some of whom had already capitulated at El-Arish on a promise not to serve again. The army had no food, no escort, no means of sending them back. On 8, 9 and 10 March they were taken in groups to the beach and shot or bayoneted to save ammunition. The order came from Bonaparte; he never denied it.

Plague broke out almost at once in a town choked with corpses. On 11 March he visited the hospital set up in a convent and, according to several witnesses, touched or lifted a patient to show that contagion was not inevitable. The gesture was real; its rendering in paint was a political commission, executed by Gros in 1804 to erase, precisely, the memory of the executions.

On the return from Acre in May a second accusation arose: that opium had been administered to the plague victims who could not be moved. Bonaparte admitted putting the question to the physician Desgenettes, who is said to have refused. Historians and testimonies still differ on whether it was carried out. Jaffa remains the place where legend and evidence contradict each other most directly.